If Binns Taught This, I Might Pay Attention in History of Magic
by nimmieamee
Summary: But of course Binns doesn't teach this, because some details don't make it into public records, let alone history books.
1. Chapter 1

In order to convince Muggles to set her on fire, Wendelin the Weird would not-so-surreptitiously cart cauldrons full of toads about, fly her broomstick in broad daylight, cackle loudly about spells on the steps of Muggle churches, and, on one particularly memorable occasion, disguised herself and snuck into the home of a magistrate, where she startled him by saying, "Wooh. Wooh. I'm a witch."

To which the magistrate replied, "Ghost, you mean."

"Sorry, what?" said Wendelin.

"Ghost," said the magistrate, "It's ghosts you're thinking of."

"I'm quite sure it isn't," said Wendelin, who knew a ghost or two personally.

"It is," insisted the magistrate, "Because it's ghosts that wooh and witches that — that cackle and carry toads and weigh the same as ducks, and so on."

"Weigh the same as ducks?" Wendelin asked incredulously.

"Yes, yes," said the magistrate, "Wait. I know you. Didn't I already have you burned?"

And in fact he had. She had already convinced him of her witchiness once. What a faux pas to forget it now! Wendelin had to act quickly to wipe his memory of the previous burning, which was a shame. She herself had such lovely memories of how the flames had tickled, and rather regretted obliviating him, the dear.

He was a very nice Muggle. A bit silly. But properly witch-hating and all that.

* * *

All minifics herein were originally posted at my tumblr, livesandliesofwizards.

Credit where it's due to Monty Python.


	2. Chapter 2

Blood sport was not uncommon, once, in out-of-the-way and peculiar places, uncivilized and dirty places for strange old one-eyed men, places where sinister people placed bets, places where the loveliest girls had full red mouths to hide their fangs, Dark places.

Envision those coliseums of old: the red-stained floors, the werewolves paid to tear opponents to shreds, the masses of poor exploited half-breeds dueling, the uneducated Muggle-borns who wasted hard-earned coin, the enforcers torturing the unluckiest of gamblers; and each horribly bloodthirsty supporter cheering on the roaring half-giant, the shrieking Veela, the vampire with his throat carved open and the sinews exposed. Horrible.

There was in the East, in the worst of these places, a very low person: the first Krum. A Muggle-born not accepted to Durmstrang, he was not only kin but also a kind of spiritual ancestor to this Krum we have now, so talented was he in the arena. Though purebloods would not let him into their schools, they would let him into their death-rings, for the purebloods, in those days, loved best their death-rings.

He fought with rings and spikes and dragon heartstring wound around his knuckles. He fought wildly (broadsheets across the continent read: The Fiercest Mudblood! A Beast to Behold!), and he became a champion. He became a household name. He took a wife whom he adored and who was too well-born for him. He took his hard-earned coin and spent it not on bets but on schools and hospitals and his fellow fighters' futures. He was no saint — he drank heavily, and kept company with others as low as he, but in time he purchased the arena. And suddenly the sport became faster and more spectacular, but also kinder to its participants. No more torn throats, no more wolves with bloody maws. And now a Muggle-born who could not pay off debts to the arena had no fear of being cornered and cursed until his skin blistered and his eyes boiled in their sockets.

And others followed the first Krum's lead. Others spent blood in the death-rings, but made from this new lives and fortunes.

But the fine old names who no longer owned the arenas soon became terribly enlightened. In a stunning editorial, a certain pure young Master Poliakoff pointed out all this awful blood. The eleventh Mrs. Malfoy pointed out the sport's long association with Dark Magic. Baron Dolohov pointed out the exploitation, the low characters, the masses of uneducated and muddy simpletons gaping at so many lawless duels. And the first Krum, Lady Grindelwald pointed out, was a drunkard who was terribly free with his well-born wife.

Laws were passed to close the arenas. The era of bloodsport was over. What we now understand as a kinder, better era commenced, with no more of these terrible places for the werewolf or half-giant or down-on-her-luck Muggle-born to earn her keep. So they do not earn their keep this way. In many cases, they do not earn their keep at all. Because now one needs a license to duel, and there are genteel rules to the sport now, rules devised by Notts and Lestranges and other such highbrow persons, persons who wouldn't dream of supporting torture and bloodshed.


	3. Chapter 3

The Leaky Cauldron was always meant to be more than just a geographic crossroads. For much of its history, its traditional proprietors, the Dodderidges, kept a hidden back room, often in defiance of anti-Muggle laws and even the Statute of Secrecy.

Here, strange new Muggle devices were introduced and refined upon: cameras and ceramic toilets, cocaine and curious antiseptic sprays. Witches who preferred Squibs or half-giants collected in the back room, secure in the Cauldron's secrecy policy; and wizards whose non-magical lovers were persecuted in Victorian London found this a safe place to engage in a dalliance. Magical painting techniques were invented behind silken screens in the corridor, thanks to a young muse of legendary beauty and dubious name who was perhaps a little bit Veela and who later found fame starring in early Muggle films. Young Hogwarts rebels darted in and out: here was Horace with a half-breed of tremendous power, with whom he could not speak freely at school, and a little bit before him were Albus and Elphias holding court in the corner sedan.

But such places never last long. The Dodderidges doddered out of being some time ago, when waves of political fervor swept our world and dispensed first with the intellectuals and then with the curious and then with the oddball thinkers.

And Tom, fearing for his safety, will not let anyone into the back room now.


	4. Chapter 4

In some corners of the Wizarding World we have a just system in place, a logical little scheme of deterrence and basic economics. Acts too heinous for words (Darkest magic, unlicensed curse invention, simply escaping from prison) earn one the Kiss; everyone knows that. And the assumption is that this is why everyone is not flinging Unforgivables at each other, not running about devising ways to curdle the innards; this is how wizards and witches know to stay in their cool little prisons, their fixed places, under the watchful eye of their Ministries and Cabinets and Regulatory Agencies. For the threat of the Kiss is a blissful ethical straitjacket, pinning one to morality and to righteousness.

And for those that do not heed our warning? Those that earn themselves the Dementors' Kiss? Fear not. Do not listen to those radical malcontents who rail against the Kiss, those provocateurs and revisionists seeking only to erode our time-honored methods of punishment.

For you see, we are still kind to the ones we have Kissed. We do not dispose of the blank-eyed body as though it were so much rubbish, we do not ship the empty carcass back to its grieving family, and we do not allow victims to carve out retribution on the soulless skin.

In some corners of the Wizarding World, we do nothing of the sort. We transform these pathetic degenerates into something they never were while they had a soul. We make them useful. Valuable. Decent contributors to society. For how else do you think we have tested the Boil-Cure potion, the Antidote to Uncommon Poisons, the Wolfsbane?

It is a grand system we have in place.


	5. Chapter 5

Glorious Chernobog, the city of vision! The ordered city, with cobbles made of dragons' teeth, and every perfect parapet carved of stone rescued from goblins' vaults. Chernobog with its curving towers to reach the stars, and its courtyards bounded by straight and systematized rows of windows — eye-shaped, square, and long; yet arranged with delightful symmetry, for Chernobog is the planned city, the pearl, the correct city, where magic is made methodic. Branching out from the central square they made space for wide boulevards paved with elves' bones, trim townhouses hung with wolf fur, elaborate libraries for the elite, and a great city hall painted such a bright silver that it might have been washed with the blood of Veela.

But there was to be no such blood in perfect Chernobog, planned Chernobog, built by werewolves and elves and hags, sacrifices to Chernobog, the creatures Chernobog was then warded against. No room for beasts in Chernobog — clean Chernobog! Conceived by that great, defeated thinker.

Beautiful, abandoned Chernobog, which could have been great: a model city. Uncluttered by the unwanted. Pure Chernobog, disciplined and law-abiding, with everyone in their place.

Perfect Chernobog, lying empty, though once it was the city of Grindelwald's dreams.


	6. Chapter 6

Every so often, very rarely, once every three hundred years or so, it will begin with a few uncommon Gryffindors, those hatstall Gryffindors, some of which are also as solid as Hufflepuffs and some of which are as sharp and ambitious as Slytherins, and at least one of which has the open, questioning mind of a Ravenclaw. And soon enough one or two questioners will join them, by the side of the lake, carting with them books and clever theories, unusual radish earrings; with arcane experimental spellwork threaded through their house robes, turning them unusual and new colors, sure to result in docked points for Ravenclaw when some prefect catches them out of uniform. By and by, there will come also one or two of those duffer types that defies categorization - not someone out to make connections, or to impress with their brilliance, or to showboat excessively, determined to be a hero; only a kind sort of person who wants new friends, one of Helga's old favorites.

And, if they are very lucky, a showboating, brilliant, connection-making dungeon-dweller will also appear — will hide in the back until he's ready to come out with some sharp observation, or will plant herself in the center to knit them all together with a purpose.

And if you wonder how it is that sometimes our world does grow, that sometimes it takes Muggle inventions and refines upon them and transmits them to all corners to improve our lot, that sometimes it passes new and better laws that seem to fulfill the purposes for which they are intended, that sometimes it does more than claw at the small-minded darkness which is forever dragging us backwards, more than battle the terrible entropy that categorizes all magical life…

Well. This is how. Every so often, very rarely, a group comes together to defeat the Hat.


	7. Chapter 7

In Britain they play Quidditch, which has a Quaffle and two Bludgers and a golden Snitch, and in the United States they play Quadpot, which they say has a kind of bomb for a ball.

Some Australian wizards and witches find this very cowardly. The local game of Hoonsmack, when played properly, includes all of the above, multiplied by four, plus a clutch of massive wild venomous spider eggs. You need at least three reserve Seekers to a side. Everyone doubles as a Beater. The Keeper is authorized to hex your broom.

And of course the best position belongs to the Thwacker, who does not fly at all, but who is tasked with refereeing from the ground, armed with her croquet mallet-esque cudgels (curiously called 'Muntsummoners'). These become necessary when players crash to the ground, as they often do, and need a nice pick me up.

For Hoonsmackers, this means being pummeled right back into the heavens.


	8. Chapter 8

They say there is a hall in the Department of Mysteries where the incurable remain. The Department has collected the corpses of basilisk victims, motionless in death, a testament to the snakes' unstoppable venom; rooms and rooms of statues, princes who once dared to cross Celtic sorceresses; and beautiful women buried up to their knees, waists, and heads, their faces twisted in horror, preserving the moment they fell prey to some ancient curse. There are hacked and ill-reassembled men who had their swords enchanted against their own limbs. In wide pens are hens that once were fine ladies, and eternally slumbering dogs dreaming the dreams of country squires who foolishly trespassed on a witch's land.

The children speak of this hall. Adults laugh, and say it does not exist. But if you could sneak in and wander from exhibit to exhibit, upending drawers and pressing your nose to the cases of this strange gallery, you might very well find odd mummies bent in pain; and the remains of people who seem similar to us, but perhaps not quite human, ice figures with swords drawn, sleeping away the centuries in mysterious iron boxes.

The business of the Department of Mysteries is, after all, mysteries. And so it is not simply a secret government collective. It has become, in its own way, something like a hidden museum.

Only the very lucky — and the very unlucky — are granted admission.


	9. Chapter 9

Oh, to spend a night at the Hotel Nestor. What fortune!

The Nestor has a glorious palm-lined drive; and orderly hedges ringed with bright tropical flowers; and silent, invisible elves to whisk away the luggage; and an attractive red-cheeked witch who gives one the room keys; and Mr. Nestor himself, in a red dressing gown, so still he appears made of black basalt, looking down appraisingly at each new guest to cross the lilac-carpeted foyer.

One may not simply book a room at the Nestor. No concierge will take the floo call. It is not done. And how could they allot a room without meeting one in person? The rooms are all so different! The suite with invisible furniture made of thestral bones, hung in black silk, overlooking a great expanse of black ocean, always suited to sunset views and clandestine encounters. The suite that is a greenhouse, with its living walls of green vine and its fragrant blossoms that open each morning to greet one with smells of honeysuckle and jasmine, where the balcony opens onto a private inner courtyard. The suite with the decadent tables all laden with food, chocolate running from the taps in the bath, the mints on pillows that are themselves made of spun mint (not meant for an average man's rest, no — but for a lothario's romantic dalliance? Just the thing). There is even, they say, a peculiar room with cosy chairs and a crackling fire and a strange flat black box and a second door, which opens onto quite an ordinary Muggle hall in quite an ordinary Muggle hotel.

The Nestor is everywhere at once, you see. Or nowhere. It is a seaside resort, but it has fronted many seas. It first takes a hazy shape, like a mirage, and then it coalesces into being, looking at last as though its pink columns and winding arbors have always fronted the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, the Coral Sea. And those who spot it know to run home, to pack whatever they can find (quickly—quickly! before it disappears), and then to present themselves, so that the red-cheeked, black-eyed maiden may assess them, may say, "Yes, yes. You seem to need rest and rejuvenation. And I know just where to place you. On our Quidditch pitches, you will find yourself reinvigorated. In the great dining room, you will find that taste you have longed for. By the lovely blue swimming pool, you will find a lover."

The Nestor is not simply a hotel. It is the place to answer one's dreams. Demelza Robins met her wife there. Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan, worn and sad from their schoolyard war, relived their boyhood in the looping maze which is all hung with Spanish moss. And old Griselda Marchbanks, tired of life, sat one day at a balcony staring at the sun rising over the sea, and died.

If it should appear before you, you must go. Even if you haven't time to pack your bags. Believe me — it will be well worth it.

Of course, when it comes time to check out, you may find yourself on another continent.


	10. Chapter 10

Here is the story that most have forgotten, that Kendra told her sons, though only her daughter, hidden in the corner, was listening at the time; that old Isla told Alphard when he tracked her down before her death; that lines of Duffers have passed down over the years, while the other houses have let it fall away; and that Hermione once found on a crumbling bit of parchment in the darkest corner of the Restricted Section (though she did not have time to decipher it fully).

The first wizard was Saynday, say some, though his name matters little. He is called many peculiar things all around the world. And his power was the power that all wizards and witches have and do not always remember that they have, which is the power to dance between clarity and confusion, by turning empty words to powerful reality. So Saynday cherished his words. He needed some loyal and clever being to help spread them all throughout the world, and in particular to help spread them to the first witch, who likewise has ten million names and who he had spied once, beautiful and dark-skinned with flashing eyes, gazing at him from her winter home on the sea foam. But now, alas, she was guarded from his gaze, in her jealous parents' summer palace at the center of the sun.

So a great contest was held, to find who was the most loyal and courageous and cunning and clever creature in the world, who might carry the first wizard's love missives to the very first witch. And the eagle, the buzzard, the crow, and the raven all failed on the first try, for they could fly far, but not to the center of the sun. And at last only magical beasts — the great dragon, the great thestral, and the great phoenix — remained. And to each of these Saynday gave a different proposal of marriage, and bade them to bring it to the beautiful witch in her sun palace.

Dragon flew half-way, until he could see the handmaidens of the sun witch gazing at him with their eyes that were stars. At that point he heard some twitting near his ear, and it was the very common and thoroughly un-magical Owl.

"What do you want?" asked Dragon.

"Oh dear," said Owl, "Oh dear. Oh dear. The witch of the sun will never look at you. You are all fleshy and pink and disgusting, with that webbing between your wings. Look, see how even the star-handmaidens turn away and flicker out their eyes to avoid seeing you. Quick, let me hold that missive for you, and you can use your magic to give yourself lovely bright scales."

So Dragon did as he was told, but when he was done Owl had sprung ahead with the missive, and he could not follow, for his scales were heavy and slowed him down.

Great Thestral, large and black, made it three quarters of the way, to where the first witch's moon gatekeeper stood, and there Owl caught up with him.

"Oh, he will not let you through!" screeched Owl, "For look, the Phoenix who came before you has tricked him, and so he is furious. You will have to turn yourself invisible. Hand me your marriage proposal, and I will hold it while you do so."

So Thestral did just that. But when it was done Owl would not give the missive back, no matter how furiously he stomped his hooves.

"What is that stomping?" asked the gatekeeper.

"Take this knife and plunge it into your heart, and you will see," said Owl. And the gatekeeper did so (this is why the sun and stars are hot and living, but the moon is cool dead rock), and caught sight of Thestral, but by then it was too late, for Owl had vanished through the gate.

Owl caught up with Phoenix just as he was circling the palace.

"Oh dear," said Owl, "Oh dear, oh dear. Look at you, terrified of a few sunny flames. The witch of the sun is laughing at you, I think. Here you fly, nervous and terrified of being burnt, when you are such a powerful magical being yourself and can surely stand a few flames. Fly right in!"

"I worry, dear Owl, that my missive will burn up."

"Oh, never mind that," said Owl, "I'll hold it, and you can go in and fetch the witch of the sun."

So Phoenix did just that, but of course he never reached her. The sun burned him up to a crisp, and, pitifully, he crawled out and cursed Owl with his last dying breaths.

But Owl felt he did not deserve curses, for he knew perfectly well that the witch of the sun was a kind being. She would not let any creature die at her doorstep. And so it was. Out she came, and when she saw Phoenix she cried over him and gave him back his life, and gave him besides that the power to revive himself, to be born from his own death, should he ever need it.

So the great dragon and the great thestral and the great phoenix became more magical than they yet were for their troubles. But it was clever, ordinary Owl who gave the sun witch her proposals, and who subsequently flew back with her acceptance.

And this is why common owls are trusted with our words.


	11. Chapter 11

The Muggleborns of Nothern and Eastern Europe were not admitted to Durmstrang. They were torn from their families so that they might not influence the Muggle world by hidden and secret magics, by those skills they themselves scarcely understood but which must remain forever barred to more mundane folk. Then they were separated from their magical brethren so that the old traditions might be upheld. This was the proper way to handle them, long ago. Giving them their own schools: dank cabins blanketed in snow and cold, or else sad geometric buildings in dark cities, places that suited their uninteresting, regular origins.

That is in the past, however. There was a great hubbub over it, chiefly made by kindly people sitting in whimsical towers and pondering, in abject desolation, the plight of these far-off little creatures; fingering half-moon spectacles or holding aloft some expose in the Prophet, or else sadly petting the cat. We call these people Enlightened Heroes today.

There was also violence, and rebellion, and powerful fury, chiefly brought to light by the Muggleborns themselves. We do not call this anything, very much. We do not talk about it.

A compromise was made. All of Europe's Muggleborns now attend Beauxbatons, or some of the smaller, more picturesque schools which dot the Mediterranean coastline. The problem is solved, neat and tidy. The last class to graduate from the older system is a distant memory, something you needn't bother to consider, so bygone it is, such a relic, such a symbol of the ancients, of old-fashioned bigotry. It was eons ago, practically another world; it has no bearing on the present, and is scarcely worth worrying over. Years and years have passed, a new day has dawned, and surely the scars of this have faded, surely those who would argue otherwise are simply oversensitive and silly. It is as far away and incomprehensible to us as the customs of Merlin's era.

It happened so very long ago.

When your mother, child, was perhaps a little bit older than you.


	12. Chapter 12

The Muggles once told tales of women in green kirtles; of men with star crowns and silver serpents around their necks; of fair people living hidden inside hills, between stones, in towers on the other side of the sun, or where the waterfall flows in reverse. And of children. Children are always at the center of the stories. Beautiful children. Special. Capable of enchanting even a queen with a star on her brow. Children who walked widdershins around the church like Childe Rowland's sister. Children warned not to drink the fairy drinks of fire, or the curious enchanted elves' food. Children warned not to talk to anyone, not to help anyone, not even the animals. Children exchanged for peat moss.

For once there were those among us who had a very different attitude towards Muggle-borns. It was not that they did not belong. It was that they belonged with us.

They say that once wizards and Muggles lived side by side in harmony. But it is wizards and witches who say that. The Muggles — if only they could remember — might tell a very different story.


	13. Chapter 13

The house became a livery stable, then a pub, then a demolished and empty lot with nothing but bunches of weeds in it, then a square office building, then a heap of rubble; and then, finally, an art museum.

And still Lealy did not leave.

Lealy was the truest soul that ever lived, you see; and he watched the old old men of the old old family venture forth into the world to be crowned and manipulated and murdered, and saw the old old women retire, for an instant, to bed, and never come back up again. And when they were gone he befriended the horses, and made sure there were always sugar lumps for them (but not too many), and had the ruder stablehands sacked and the kinder ones rewarded. And at the pub Lealy saw the happy drunks home safely, and the cruel ones to the gutter. And, when he was surrounded by nothing but great bunches of weeds, Lealy helped them grow as tall as weeds could, and saw to it that they blossomed into sturdy, fuzzy flowers to captivate passing schoolchildren.

Even the office building prospered because Lealy was there. The young men and women with padded shoulders to give them courage became genuinely brave over time, for Lealy would make sure that their charts and graphs were always in the right place, that there was always a cuppa for them at their desks, and that in the angular boardroom the men with cruel eyes and bristling mustaches were seated in the lowest, most unreliable, most uncomfortable office chairs — Lealy liked to reserve the lowest places for the lowest people.

Lealy even stacked the rubble, when the office building came down; and kept a solid fellow in a sturdy hat from plummeting to his death; and contained the great billowing of smoke so that no worker, busy demolishing and building back up again, might find their lungs clouded up and their futures likewise clouded with sickness.

But in the museum Lealy found something new, something different. Here people came not to shore up old names, or discuss charts and graphs, or even to drink away their sorrows. Here people hung rebellion on the walls, and preserved brilliant moments between loved ones, so like those precious moments long ago with the old family that Lealy had by now nearly forgotten. And so Lealy became the protector not of horses or harassed secretaries, but of ideas, of progress, of bursts of expression.

It was the oddest task Lealy had ever had. The pictures did not need a cuppa. But he soon learned to protect them from camera flashes. The young artists who came all full of dreams did not want his service. But perhaps they could use some inspiration — which was a harder thing to provide by far.

But Lealy took to it. Lealy never shirked his duties. And so he began to swell up as he never had before, learning about love in the curve of a brushstroke, and beauty as it was reflected in the glaze of a common pot. They did not use the pots to make tea here; they displayed them. Ordinary, loyal little things — they were now repurposed as beautiful, ornate, precious, worthy of admiration.

Lealy loved the museum best of all. And the museum-goers, they loved him. They came looking for something extraordinary (one does not look for wonderment in a pub or in stables or in an office building, or even at home — but in a museum! That is a different story), and the ones with the clearest eyes, the youngest hearts, the most open minds — they found Lealy.

Lealy would whisper to them the secrets of how to stay loyal and true, and, above all else, how to put kindness into the world. Lealy was not supposed to talk to these clear-eyed persons, not really. While Lealy had stayed in this one spot, watched it mutate around him, the world had undergone even greater mutations, and now there was a Statute that said Lealy was not supposed to be in a Muggle museum at all.

But what did Lealy care for such ever-changing, unreliable things as Statutes? Statutes are forged to tell men their proper places. But Lealy was no man. He was a house elf; he did not need to be told where he belonged.


	14. Chapter 14

"First studied by the prophetess Anoushka Ramiel in 1607 at the court of Jahangir, dream magic is powerful in the extreme, perhaps the most powerful any witch or wizard can produce, but also highly unpredictable and erratic. It resembles the magic of the hypnotized and the Imperiused, for it is possible for the caster to both wish it done and despair at its doing. It runs contrary to the circuitry of the magical mind, ebbing up from the great subconscious of every witch or wizard, and those who have attempted to channel it — as did the Spanish wizard Narciso Mimoza in the nineteenth century — have found themselves sinking rapidly into madness.

To the students who wish to learn it, we ask you to recall that moment just before falling asleep, when the voices of your housemates fall off, or are heard only at a distance, and the ominous rustling of the curtains around the bed suddenly ceases to disturb you. There might be an odd twitching of your limbs at this time, a spasmic thing which you cannot control and yet which leaves your senses completely unmoved. Your hand might grasp for your wand one last time, for some comfort, and yet when it encounters a soft pillow or the empty air you are not bothered — you are already too far gone. Not yet asleep. But too far gone.

The magic you might be able to control from within in your dreams, where all morals and reasons and sensibilities and loved ones cannot reach you, is like this. You would attempt to command or understand it, to use journals and breathing mechanisms and all manner of clever tricks to bring it within your grasp, and yet before you know it you would be drowning. Senseless. Mad.

This is dream magic. The Darkest magic. No firsthand accounts of it survive. It is forbidden."

- The sole authority on dream magic in the Restricted Section. No Title, Author Unknown.

* * *

Alright, maybe Binns doesn't teach you this one because it's just not his specialty.


	15. Chapter 15

You will never learn of Tiassale, the island kingdom; the place that was founded when the first spark of magic jumped beyond strange centaur and common elf and silly fairy and wicked jarvey, and lodged itself in men. It was a network of palaces rising out of the sea, a home for man and merman alike, not large, but perfect and ordinary. The onyx-eyed young witches sang charms for true love, and batted their lashes at the mergirls near the docks. Wizard and Muggle worked together, intermarried, carried in the day's catch, and shared it equally with all.

Tiassale, you might suppose, was a paradise. But of course we will never know.

There arose a great commotion in Europe, around the time wizards and Muggles alike first dreamed up the idea to capture an image in a frame. Monarchs were beheaded, small and grim men took to the stage, in Italy and Germany there were sowed the seeds of rebellion and national pride. But this was only for the Muggles. For the wizards, the wars were a network of terrible alliances with creatures most foul, of new forms of Dark Magic endorsed by scientific advancement and the power of the Statute of Secrecy at its height.

This was the end of Tiassale, though Tiassale was nowhere near Europe. For the war lasted much, much longer for the wizards than for the Muggles. And, desperate to end it, the Ministry instructed its finest minds to test — scientifically, of course — all the weapons at its disposal. The band of adventurers and explorers we know and love today: Marduk Black, Gwyn Nott, Maleagant Malfoy, Aeron Slughorn, and Dysmas Weasley, those who ended the wars, searched high and low for a suitable testing ground. They alighted on Tiassale after a long and terrible journey (as terrible as the weapons they kept in the cargo hold).

And how odd, how perverse Tiassale seemed to them. Beautiful, the way the rays of the sun caught the shell-encrusted doorpanes. But base, and ugly, and foully mixed were the people. Slughorn admired the golden arms of the strong fisher-wizards. But their blood, he said, was an affront to society. Their religions and customs were bizarre. Their adoration for the Muggle, and disregard for the Statute, was something truly despicable.

On the first night, the travelers photographed themselves with a beautiful crowd of Tiassale's children. This was one of the great new scientific advancements: the photograph.

And on the second night, Weasley, their leader, gave the order to begin testing.

So they did. They noted the results of blood-congealing curses and hexes to peel back the flesh. They marked the effects of fear on the fighting skills of the average wizard. All in all, the findings were mixed, excepting the great promise showed by the cargo.

They had always suspected they would need to use the cargo passengers. Curse testing carried a horrible price: the memory of what one had done, the rush of power one felt, the certain and wonderful knowledge that one was a monster. And as long as they enjoyed themselves while doing it, they knew the Dementors in the cargo would gladly take the memories away.

As surely as they removed from the earth all memories and all knowledge of Tiassale.

When the band returned and set their new methods on their enemies, then on prisoners in Azkaban, brokering for the first time a union and ceasefire between Dementors and the rest of magical Britain, they were hailed as heroes. Orders of Merlin all around. Slughorn was named to the Wizengamot. Nott took a respectable teaching position. Black begat a headmaster. Malfoy began a family.

But Weasley, who had not fully enjoyed what he had done, was unable to move on. He never forgot. He remembered the shell palaces. He recalled with great clarity the golden and onyx witch-children. He retreated into drink, and lost his fortune. His face became very aged, he worried his sons, and he began to suspect that the world would punish him and all his line.

"We must not judge people by the actions of their fathers, nor measure them in blood," he would spit out at his grandson, little Septimus. "We must disregard blood. Disregard it!"

At the age of one hundred and fifty, he attempted to deliver himself to the Dementors, and, when his family intervened, he descended into their empty Gringotts vault (far from the rays of the sun, which always seemed to remind him of that long-forgotten island) and put his wand to his forehead.

His children's children are poor and mad traitors. They disregard the tenets of blood. Just as well: we must not judge them by the actions of one ancestor. They are very different.

Young Arthur, sifting through a trunk in the family attic, found the photograph of Tiassale — the only evidence the place ever existed.

"Look at this!" he said to his father. "Look! Beautiful."


	16. Chapter 16

Our most cheerful alums flock to the Hufflepuff club, to its cozy dens and immaculate dining rooms; and the Slytherin club remains to this day in its old Knockturn spot, imposing and exclusive, where the snootiest house elves in Britain are ready to chuck one out at the slightest hint of blood treason, or even for wearing last season's robes.

Ravenclaw's club lasted a mere decade beyond its founding, before it split into two clubs, one for Ravenclaws who preferred the scientific method to magical puttering, and one for Ravenclaws who believed in sensible and established arcane philosophies instead of modern and silly Muggle experimentation. From there it has split a further forty-three times, and today Ravenclaws may have their pick, or else they may simply found their own branch; and, individualistic as they are, they often do.

But what happened to the Gryffindor club?

Once the heart of Godric's Hollow, its warm red wood welcoming any stalwart young heart, it now lies ruined, ivy winding through the high casement windows, the foundation a bone-strewn home for stoats and mice and snakes. It is gone. No one mentions it. The hulk of it has been swallowed by the old cemetery, and Gryffindors today pass it by, unheeding, unaware that once they, too, had a place beyond the walls of Hogwarts to call their own.

The Gryffindors did not wine and dine in their club, you see. They did not network and exclude, passing judgment on blood or elves or robes. They did not dissect and bisect knowledge in infinite mathematical loops, separating magic from science, experimentation from philosophy.

No, the Gryffindors took sides during the Anarchy. They became Levellers. They fought tooth and nail against each other during the Barons' Wars. In the Gryffindor club, it was not good cheer or blood or science which ruled, but sides, banners, civil conflicts — supporters of Lancaster dueling the supporters of York.

Gryffindors do not shy away from conflict. And today conflict unites them, a heady drug, calling even the fiercest lions together under one cause.

But in earlier times? War or peace, lions were lions. And these lions dearly loved their banners and ideals. So, brought together, they could only destroy each other for supremacy.

Their club is gone. Now they only fight the other houses. It is better this way.


	17. Chapter 17

The gardens of Malfoy Manor lapse into an artificial disorder so perfect and so cunning that one might think _here is a real wooded thicket! Here is formed a true miracle of greenery!_ without ever knowing that this is all the work of a beleaguered house elf, ordered to work and work and work and work until he had produced a simulacrum lovely enough to compete with nature herself.

And the gardens of Beauxbatons are ordered, symmetrical, divine. They force a strange effect on the mind; first, awe at the scientific exactness of it. And next comfort, a powerful sense of human rightness and mastery as one looks on all those regular hedges interspersed with beautiful statuettes, with singing mermaids in each fountain, with rows and rows of orange trees so identical that one might suppose nature has been bested.

But the greatest garden in the world is in the far West of Asia where was once the kingdom of Xerxes and Darius and then Alexander. It is so perfect that one might assume it is not a garden at all, excepting that the white palace at the center is no palace, but a rare lily with four million petals branching out to form domes and columns; and a stem that is a central stair in jade green, and inner courtyards with sweet-smelling pools that are its syrupy aqua vitae.

The rocks surrounding the garden, too, are plants. Chip away at them and it is not dirt you will find, but sap and inner greenery and a great concentration of healing water; the mountain is no mountain. It is one of those hard spiked desert plants so prized by mediwizards. And ringed around it are temples which are pistachio trees growing all together to form walls, and statues which are nothing more than massive, peculiarly cultivated berries that have sprung from the ground, itself no more than a branch of some tree which protrudes from the center of the earth. The leopards which stalk the garden are shrubs and mandrakes that have seized upon magic and given themselves new form. The vipers are walnut shells and willow leaves, which have soaked in the power of the place and attained a kind of independent life.

This is not nature controlled by witch or wizard. This is nature controlling itself, the highest form of gardening. And it is a puzzle to all who have visited. Phyllida Spore, who came when very young and stood on a cliff nearby and gazed at the place, asked, "Why imitate us? Why make a human place, and a human city?" She received no answer.

And Pomona Sprout, who came when very old, concluded that this was because the garden was a trap, a network of meat-eating plants that sought to entice passing fools with its beauty, and devour them whole with enchantments once they'd passed under its almond-fruit gates.

And this may be so. For few who enter the garden come out again. It inverts the human trickery of Beauxbatons and Malfoy Manor; here we find humanity consumed by forest and hedge, by nature exercising her most magnificent artifice.

But Neville (who made it back out again, thanks to hard work and courage) believed that this was simply herbology in its most perfect form, the plants themselves proving that anything arrogant man could do, they could do twice as well. And Ginny (who went with him and also survived, thanks to her ferocity and her will), understood that there was beauty in the trials the garden subjected one to, that the place was no devourer, but simply designed to reflect all the pain and loveliness in the world, a great testing ground to make one stronger.

But Luna (who had gone and gotten herself lost in it in the first place, thanks to her curiosity and her cleverness; and who was subsequently rescued by two dear friends, though, if you'd asked her, she would have been very shocked to realize that she needed a rescue at all) theorized that it was all the work of the creator-elf; that is, the universe's most overworked and mercurial house-elf, the one we call Nature, who had made the world and was forever keeping it from sliding into man-made ruin.

And that here one might find the wellspring of all magic.


	18. Chapter 18

The path of the world is no sure thing. Events are not certain, though fools and soothsayers say otherwise. Even that which has already occurred means nothing! Nothing to a witch or wizard with sufficient determination. On one night, for example, a boy and girl unwound time's spool, saved more than one life and discovered, by undoing a darker timeline, a power strong enough to drive darkest evil away.

So give us a cruel world, and we know it may be possible to wind back until we are in a better one.

Suppose Mr. Malfoy, who would unwittingly bring the war to a head and discover a certain cabinet and change the fate of an entire school — suppose his father triumphed? And sent him away to a different place, a school much harder and colder, where he became by degrees a thinner and overall less important figure — a footnote, really — simply the boy cheering on Krum in a throwaway scene?

Then no one would invade the school at all, not for thirty more years, and in all that time the war would rage on, would progress to the continent, would claim many more lives.

And what of Ms. Lovegood? Suppose her mother, that stabilizing force, had never died. Suppose she were there to counter Xenophilius's every curious mood, suppose she were there to provide loving support and careful advice to her daughter, to furnish the secrets of friendship.

Why, then Ms. Lovegood will be close to young Brocklehursts and Bodes, if still considered a bit odd; and when some grim young hero rushes past her, looking for the secrets of a certain ghost, she will not have the answer for him. She will have been busy with friends, not lonely enough to have sought chilling and ghostly answers.

Suppose Mr. Weasley worked very late, all through until the morning, and never came home to his loving wife on a cold night, and in eleven years' time been short one son? Or perhaps it happened a year later, and they were short a daughter?

Suppose that two dentists had moved to Australia long ago? A long-desired trip! And there their little girl was accepted to some curious outback school, where the students kept massive spiders as pets and played rougher games than Quidditch. She thrived, of course. Books and cleverness. But in the meantime Britain was lost, and two Hogwarts schoolboys who need her lost with it.

Suppose Mr. Longbottom's parents had ceded a certain case to Auror Shacklebolt, and let him meet certain doom, while they accepted Uncle Algernon's advice to remove to Canada? Suppose that, when the children of Hogwarts looked about for someone to remind them what courage was, courage was not there at all. He was in Vancouver, safe and warm and loved, and they were terrified, and soon to give up.

Well. Events are not sure things. Though we might suppose none of this happened, suppose something like it did. Suppose Harry Potter faced certain doom aged and friendless and alone, and suppose that instead he unwound the spool of time somehow, undid his whole universe. And in the undoing he found these strange crossroads, these moments where such crucial people, and others, just as crucial — a professor who might have married her Muggle, a godfather who might have chosen his family, and so on — set in motion different events.

And each time, with every change, he found an unwinnable future, something unspeakably dreadful, as though in order to produce a world where enough might live on and the world might continue to spin, he would have to knit the world into the right pattern, to find the right alchemical mixture of events.

Suppose, having undone the wrong at the heart of his universe, he set upon a novel idea: to fix all the others. To travel to one where a golden-haired girl was living locked up in St. Mungo's, and her brother very merrily conquering the world, never once dispensing a lemon drop. That had to be fixed. And so too the world where a young man never lent away his Invisibility Cloak, and was able to shield himself and his wife from death, and their son grew slightly spoiled, and much less malleable, and did not succumb to the would-be conqueror's machinations, and all was lost.

And so too the world where Peter Pettigrew did the right thing.

Suppose that in this timeline, the one recorded, the real one (or so we think), whenever Hermione needed the right book, there was a strange attendant in Flourish and Blotts pointing her to it, for without its knowledge she might never have accomplished what she did? Suppose there was someone to come across a broken De-Luminator in the Headmaster's possession and to fix it for him, so that it might be handed off to Ron Weasley someday? Suppose it was _him_. A sufficiently determined Harry Potter.

Would he have left some clue behind, some key for how to do it without causing too much havoc? If it had been Hermione, she would have. Suppose it _was_ Hermione. In one timeline, perhaps it was; and she wrote a book, detailed and instructive, and very clear if one were clever enough to decipher it. Or suppose Ron did, presenting it all like a game of chess.

Suppose the book fell into the right hands. Suppose it fell into the wrong ones.

They would only need to change events to achieve their ends. This is easy, for a magical person with enough determination. So perhaps they did just that.


End file.
